


Counting the Bodies Like Sheep

by Cards_Slash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Demon Castiel, Demon Dean, M/M, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6741484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long before Dean was a demon, he was a man that trusted the wrong person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting the Bodies Like Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from LJ (2010) originally written for a friend.

**THEN**  
“How can he do that?” Dean demanded, throwing an arm out—point at the door or what was beyond at, at wherever Sam was, running off with that stupid bitch of a demon, Ruby. “How can he _be_ that?” 

What he meant, and couldn’t bring himself to ask, was how he could go to _hell_ to save Sam and come back to find him working with a _demon_. How Sam could ever have brought himself to consider such an idea much less lie to Dean’s face just hours after he’d gotten back from hell. It worked through his body like a fury that left him numb to everything except the pulse of more fury and he threw the bottle that he’d been holding in his hand just to watch it shatter against the wall. 

“How?” he demanded.

Cas was looking at him, his arms at his sides and his face blank and yet _pained_. His fingers twitched at his sides like he wanted to touch him or comfort him and he did not know how or did not think he was allowed. “You must stop him, Dean or we will be forced to.” It was all imaginary, that edge of hesitancy and remorse in the tremor of his voice. 

“Stop him?” Dean repeated, “I want to _kill_ him.” (He remembered that, remembered the torture room and the screams and the sweat of leather against a writhing body that was the soul’s last grasp at once it had once been. He remembered the blood on his knives and how—at the start of the day, he’d run his fingers across the blades because the shine of them was so _fucking_ pretty.) 

Cas’ eyebrows were bunched up again, a mockery of Human pain or angelic misunderstanding. He kept his distance because it was polite and Dean was irrational—because he couldn’t break the nice Human who had to fight the big war for him. He was only there because he was Dean Winchester’s fucking guardian angel or whatever the fuck you called the ‘angel of the Lord’ that dragged you out of hell and left a handprint across your arm that was _really_ fucking _hard_ to explain to anyone let alone anyone that you wanted to get naked with. “Dean,” he said. He said it how he always said it like he was helpless and lost and incapable of making anything different or better because he was just _following orders_ and Dean Winchester (of all people) should know what it was like to _follow orders_.

Dean kicked the rickety chair and the rickety table and spun around to fall back to sit on the bed, pressed his fingertips against his scalp and buried his face in his hands. His back felt bowed and painful and his breath was a fog of alcohol crawling up his nose in the too close space his hands made. 

“Dean,” Cas said again, “you _must_ stop Sam.” His hands moved in the periphery of Dean’s vision like he was aching to touch him, “I’m sorry.” He gave the words a second to sink in and really start to hurt before he was gone in a flutter of angel wings and Dean was absolutely alone.

 

**NOW**  
Years, and years and _years_ later when Dean had lost just about everything he’d ever thought he had (except his _name_ and he couldn’t even remember why he still had that anyway), he would remember that he was born (again, but not for the very first time) in a pitch-black coffin being crushed by six feet of solid _dirt_ that seeped in the stink of rain-water on soil. He remembered the weight of the Human flesh clinging to his soul and the unbearable assault of his senses in a world that was as foreign to him now as hell had been in those first few blinding minutes of pain and deep-red-fire. It had been overwhelming and _painful_ and all at once the closest to joy he had been in forty years (or maybe even the twenty seven before that). With his fists and fingers he dug his way out of the ground and back into the sunlight and for those first few precious seconds laying under the comfort of the blue sky and white clouds—everything was perfectly at _peace_.

Dean remembered that moment, that first precious moment after he’d crawled out of the hole he’d been born in (again, so to speak), for years and years and years when he needed one moment to wrap his fists around and hold tight against his chest as a last grasp of sanity and _humanity_ because in that moment when he had been grateful just to breathe and ache and blink blindly at the sky he was the most _Human_ and _happy_ to be alive he had ever been. All his other memories faded with time, wrenched out of his body in blood—he lost his Mother and Father and Sam. He gave up his guilt and his sorrow and all of his regrets and every time they fell away like a rain of sticky blood to the floor he found the whole world lighter and all the rules he’d lived by for so _many_ years became irrelevant and trivial. 

All that he kept (besides that memory, besides the lingering thought of sunshine and thick underbrush and the pungent smell of wood cracked open and bleeding sawdust) was his hate and his hurt and his _doubts_. The history of his life was burned into his skin, left in a pattern of raised scars and fading bruises and echoing through his ears in a litany of accusations and rejections. Dean was stupid and Dean was stubborn and he spent years-and-years-and-years thinking that he could save himself if only he could remember what had been taken from him, what had been done to him, if only he could sink his fingers into the black-ball of hate in his gut and remember where-and-how it had been born. For those first years (like ten, maybe twenty, maybe thirty and then _oh boy_ they had themselves a real fine anniversary party), he kept himself.

Now, long _after_ , he remembered nothing at all but that thought of the _sky_ and not even what it meant to be Human. He didn’t even understand what the hands pulling at the bindings on his wrists and ankles or the straps across his hips and jaw meant to do and he did not hold his breath or clench his teeth against the screaming tear of flesh anymore. When there was nothing to hold him suspended against the studded table he fell forward—to his knees—and the ground was hot as _hellfire_ under his bare knees and palms. He spread his fingers in the soot and the thick-and-sticky blood and listened to the echoing screams of a thousand other souls begging for a reprieve from their inevitable fate. Dean could remember the sound from the day before but he couldn’t remember the last time it bothered him instead of comforted him and couldn’t even remember that it should have _disgusted_ him.

“Dean.”

Dean was born (again but not for the first, not for the second time) naked, on his knees in the unbearable heat and darkness of _hell_. When he didn’t look up at the man that had brought him here—to this—the warm hand caught under his chin with the same brutal clench of thumb and fingers that had pulled and pushed and molded him into this thing that he was _now_. His body was stiff and strange, energy was under his skin and tingling all around the edges of what he used to be and no longer was. A thumb dragged across his lips as he tipped his head back and he looked up, into the inky darkness with the sudden explosion of fire and the wretched scream of another pitiful soul. 

“You are beautiful. You were always beautiful.” Cas smiled at him.

 

**THEN**  
Dean hadn’t ever wondered about what happened when an angel (of the Lord) died because it hadn’t ever been a relevant worry to him. For the first twenty nine years of his life, angels hadn’t existed except on Hallmark cards and in stupid movies. When he found himself face-to-face with an angel (of the Lord) wearing a tax-accountant he had to start rearranging his thinking about that kind of thing. So maybe he’d made it around to wondering silly things about angels like where they went when they weren’t around him and what they did if they never had to sleep or eat but he hadn’t even started to think that there was a way to _kill_ one of them. 

Not even thought, because Anna hadn’t been an angel (not anymore, anyway) but a Human missing her angelic grace who could hear the chatty bastards talking about him just enough that she knew there was an apocalypse going on and everyone upstairs wanted to get their hands on Dean (or maybe Sam, or maybe both) Winchester and she had been afraid of Castiel but couldn’t remember _why_. Pamela had been working on figuring out why, trying to guide Anna back through her memories to find what she’d lost in the fall. 

Anna had been quiet and close, with her hand across Dean’s and her curious stare eying his shoulder through his shirt like she knew what was branded into his skin. Hell, she might have known—maybe the chatty angels were all about telling the secrets seared into his skin and how he’d been pulled out of the pit (about what he’d done while he was down there. About how he was Alastair’s favorite). “Dean,” she said when they were almost alone because Sam was over in the opposite corner with the demon bitch he was fucking, “they talk about you. They say you’re the only one that can stop this.”

Dean had heard that before in variations—( _we have work for you_ and _God commanded it_ )—but when she said it, the words were like a weight that crushed him against the broken floor of the cabin they were squatting in. The wind outside was a howl all of a sudden and if he had been thinking (about anything else) he might have thought it seemed a lot like there was something wicked at the door just waiting to get in. He looked at her and the wide gape of her eyes and the quiet line of her mouth and knew that when _she_ said it there was sympathy and _pity_ in her voice. Anna was an angel that _rebelled_ and _fell_ and lost herself in the simple Human pleasure of ignorance and existence until they found her. Dean snorted at her words and she smiled at his derision. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” he asked.

“Dean,” she put her hand on his arm, across the mark that Castiel (angel of the Lord) had left. “The serpent is more subtle...” Maybe she’d meant to say more but the wind became a scream from a howl and the walls were shaking. The demon bitch (Sam was fucking) was across the room shifting on her feet, looking too fucking pale and gripping Sam’s arm while she shouted across the noise that _they_ were _here_.

_They_ were Castiel (angel of the Lord) and Uriel (douchebag). Uriel was intent on destruction and Castiel was following behind him like he was only being a good soldier and after a few thousand years had _finally_ found something that churned in his gut like _doubt_. His feet dragged while Uriel moved with all the conviction of a true (douchebag) sycophant that enjoyed his lack of choice and reveled in the acts of violence his obedience allowed him to enact. 

“Cas!” Dean shouted while Anna hid behind a flimsy door. “ _Cas_.”

They were gone in a flash of light so bright it burned spots into Dean’s eyes for _hours_ and Anna was glowing and furious with her bloody hand against a bloody symbol on the wall. Sam grabbed the demon-bitch and Dean pulled Anna and they escaped from nowhere to Bobby’s salvage yard. Between piles of wrecks, he let himself be lulled into a false sense of security and put his faith in Sam who put his faith in a demon (he was fucking).

Anna stood at the trunk of the Impala and smiled at him like any other woman in a bar had ever smiled at him. She put her palms against his cheeks and breathed warm (and Human) breath against his mouth, let him close his eyes and draw in the strange scent of her skin and rest his hands on the unfamiliar curve of her waist. “You don’t even know me,” she said against his face between rushed kisses, “you shouldn’t trust me,” and her words were lost when his fingers found her skin and found it _warm_ and _dry_ and so fucking soft it didn’t seem real. “Dean,” she whispered again, “Dean.”

They fucked in the backseat of the Impala with her hand on the mark left on his skin and her eyebrows pulled down close to her eyes. Her body was slick with sweat and hotter than hell (almost, _literally_ ) all around him until the air between them was muggy and wet. He watched her staring at him with her mouth open and eyebrows pulled in like she was just _trying_ to remember. 

Three hours later, she was dead and her Human body was bleeding Human blood across the ground and Uriel was grinning with a vicious triumph and a stain of blood down the too-bright silver gleam of his sword. Dean was flat on his back and the demons that had followed Ruby were hollow corpses on the ground around him. Sam was half on his hands and knees when Uriel caught him by the throat and pulled him up. It was too far away to hear his words in a hiss but Dean saw the tip of his sword still dripping blood and the desperate shove of Sam’s arms trying to get free. 

Dean made it to his feet and across the room but Uriel knocked him back with his elbow and laughed when he fell against the wall with his face landing on the sticky puddle of blood spreading out from Anna’s unmoving body. “Sam!” Dean shouted.

Cas caught Uriel by the wrist and twisted him away; Sam fell back against the wall and coughed for the breath that had been squeezed out of his throat and the two angels were furious and bright _white_ as they fought. Cas was thrown back and Uriel was furious and spitting words that made no sense, stalking forward with the intent to kill as Castiel pushed his palm and heels against the ground to get back to his feet. 

“I will not allow you to do this,” Cas said. 

They fell together again as Dean crawled back to his feet and shuffled across the floor to grab Sam by the shirt and pull him around. He got his fingers on Sam’s face, pulled him around until he could see his eyes. “Sam.” It was the span of a million seconds before Sam’s eyes focused on him and his hand caught Dean’s shoulder to push him back because he was _fine_ (of course). Dean held on with both hands and smeared Anna’s cold and drying blood across Sam’s skin and clothes. 

“Dean, I’m—”

Behind his back and in front of Sam’s face a brilliant and blinding white light burst and flash-burned without heat so that when Dean turned back to see where it had come from the smoky black outline of wings was spread out from where Uriel was laying dead. Cas was holding the silver sword in one fist and there was blood on his lip as he staggered back. When Cas turned he looked for them. “Is Sam injured?” he asked.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Sam said and shoved Dean back again.

Cas came over and held his hand out to Dean, pulled him to his feet without any effort at all and held his hand in a too close grip as he looked at him with too much attention. “Are you injured?” he asked like he was asking something else entirely.

“I’m good,” Dean said and he had no idea at all what he was really saying.

 

**NOW**  
The thing about being (reborn) a demon was that when he broke through the gates of hell and tore across the ragged and wasting earth, he was nothing but black smoke but he felt as expansive as the sky and as unstoppable and immortal as the day itself. The thought of a body itched at the corners of what he was, burned like an unwanted limited and ached like a forgotten injury. The boundaries of flesh turned over in what might have been his gut years-and-years ago and now was nothing more than a bit of himself that rippled in the passing breeze. 

There was no smell or sight or sound but the unimaginable and indescribable _otherness_ that made him a god sweeping across the burnt and blackened world that had long been forsaken by the God they had trusted. He could feel them by their fear and the staccato beat of their slow-dying hearts as they huddled in their camps behind devil’s traps and lines of salt that grew thinner and thinner every day. 

When Dean found them, just a cluster of precious few bodies left in working condition, they were hunting through the buildings left standing for anything worth taking. He followed them with a skip and slip, tickled with giggles and waited for one of them to step around a corner alone before he ripped down into their body through their eyes and mouth and nose, forcing himself inside the body and beat down the soul that tried so hard to cling to the edges of its meat. 

He tried out the limbs that hung heavy around him and flexed his new muscles that seemed so limited and so temporary. The voices of the others were at the corners of his new senses and the soul that was still struggling to live was screaming and railing against him. Dean thought of killing them all; thought of how their blood would be so _fucking_ red and _hot_ and pumping across his hands as he wrenched the screams out of their trembling lungs and the thought of it ran through this mortal body and hardened between his thighs. 

So Dean left them to their hunt for food and walked down the streets—smelled the smoke and the bloated and rotting flesh of the monsters made of Human bodies that were left unburied and unburned and _headless_ by the sides of the streets and in the doorways where they’d died. He walked for the sake of moving muscles he barely remembered, drew in breath and practiced moving his mouth and tongue—enjoyed the simplicity of flesh—until the smell of detergent and shampoo caught on the edges of his senses and his whole body and being suddenly _ached_. 

Castiel was just inside the revolving door of a hotel that looked like its toilets were made of gold. His trench coat was spread out beneath him like unfurled wings and his knees were spread open as his shoulders sank back into a plush (and stained) chair, his boots were dragging in the dirt on the floor and his hands were laying against the arms of the chair carelessly. He said nothing at all, looked at him and watched Dean fall to his knees in front of him. His fingertips—the same fucking fingers of an angel (of the Lord) he’d had a hundred-thousand years ago when Dean was still _limited_ and _mortal_ , long before he’d been _reborn_ like he was now. Cas’s breath was just a whisper of sound and his body was warm as _fire_ under the palms of the body Dean was wearing. Dean pushed his palms up the length of Cas’ thighs, to his hips, unbuckled his belt and pulled open his button and zipper, eased the pants down across his tanned skin. The white shirt was rumpled and sweat-wrinkled as he folded it back with his thumbs. Cas’ head was cocked to one side, his lips twitched in a smirk with a glint of too-white teeth behind his lips but his hands stand just as passive against the chair as they’d been before Dean’s breath and tongue and lips were pressing against his skin.

“You’re filthy,” Cas said when Dean’s mouth was on his dick, “you’re disgusting and _filthy_.” But he let him suck his dick until he was hard and hot and wet, until Cas was pushing up against his lips and tongue and down his throat. His hand caught Dean’s hair—thick and matted and _disgusting_ as it was—and twisted, pushed his face down and held him there as his throat was burning and all he could taste on his tongue was salt-skin and copper-blood. His hand cupped Dean’s face when he pushed him back, thumb pushing his lip and his eyes were so _blue_ and his skin was the last _pure_ and _clean_ thing in the whole fucked up world. 

“Fuck me,” Dean said because it had been a _hundred-thousand_ years since he’d had skin and bones to feel anything with. The sensation was a prickle like the feeling of shame he’d lost on the bloody floor in hell where he’d lost every-fucking-thing-else. He stood up, pulled at the coat and ratty shirts that were layered over layers just trying to keep this body from freezing in the bitter cold of the world. He smelled sulfur on his own skin as he stripped down and the thin-and-bruised body was exposed to the chill of the room. Cas touched him when Dean leaned close, trailed his hand down his chest, curled a hand around his hip and followed the motion of his body as he climbed into the chair and fisted the back of it. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked with his teeth at Cas’ mouth and his hand on his perfect-fucking-face. Anger was twisted up in lust coiled up in something else that worked down his spine until he was fucking his hips down against Cas’ hard-and-spit wet dick dragging at his skin. 

Cas didn’t smile at him, just stared at his face in the few inches between them—let him work himself, let him shiver as he tightened his fist in the clean-scented trench coat that hung off Cas’ body. His eyes were so fucking _blue_ and Dean _hated_ it and his lips and his skin and the press of his palms across his hip and the way he sat there like he didn’t give a fuck if Dean stayed or went because Cas was _forever_ and after that too. His voice was a gravel pitch in Dean’s memory, his face was the face of a savior and in a different body, in a different time he’d left his handprint across Dean’s skin so there was no part of him he didn’t fucking _own_ and they both knew it.

“Filthy,” Cas said again—all sharp teeth behind dry lips.

Dean ducked his head and bit his neck, pulled at his tie and his shirt and his jackets until he was sinking his teeth down into Cas’ shoulder and _drawing blood_ just to taste it across his tongue and see it like a stain on his _perfect_ skin. He was grinding his hips down, arching his back and holding Cas in two fists as his breath sobbed out through his nose. Cas tipped his head back, exposed his throat and let him move until the desperation was painful and _awful_ and sharp as knives against his skin. “Fuck me,” he snarled into the pink shell of his ear, “ _fuck_ me.”

Cas’ eyes were closed and his tongue was at the edge of his lips, he tipped his head so his cheek was against Dean’s and his breath was ragged against his ear. His hand ran down Dean’s bare thighs and pulled his knees so they were over the arms of the chair and he was spread _wide open_ and Cas’ dick was wet with only spit when it pushed up inside of Dean’s borrowed body that resisted and gave with a twist of pain that was just a tickle in comparison to (hell). 

Dean held the back of the chair, straightened his arms and let his head fall back, closed his eyes and let Cas move him, let him fuck him. Just closed his eyes and let him do _whatever the fuck_ he wanted because it burned and ached and tore through the mortal body so hard and so fucking _fast_ he couldn’t breathe and it was _beautiful_ in a simple-bloody-ecstasy he hadn’t felt since (before).

He was babbling bullshit as Cas’ hands broke bruises into his skin and his hips snapped up again and again and _fucked_ him until his voice was a hum and then a growl and then shaking the walls all around them. Cas’ nails were digging into his skin and when he couldn’t take it anymore, he pulled Dean forward again and pressed their mouths together. His tongue was slick and insistent and _just clever_ like the flicking tongue of a serpent and a soul-mate-lover. He fucked Dean’s mouth and his body and shuddered against him when it started to tear him down. 

Dean smiled, tightened his knees and his body and felt the burn as Cas jerked up into him harder and bit down on his lip just to taste his dark-demon-blood. He spread his hands across Cas’ face, in his hair, felt how thick and how soft-and-clean it was. “What do I taste like?” he asked with blood on his chin, “what do I feel like?” He worked back into the hard-hot-tight thrusts into his body. “You like this? You like what you made?” He bit Cas’ mouth and his cheek and his jaw, dug his teeth in over the hard pulse in his throat, tore the skin so his blood was everywhere and in his mouth, slipping down his throat. “Remember what I was? Remember?”

“Yes,” Cas said with a hand spread across his back. His voice was _wrecked_ and he came so fucking hard it made his whole body arch and his vessel was barely strong enough to hold him in. 

Dean leaned in against his body, two arms sliding between the coats and shirt to feel the muggy heat and pressed teeth against his ear. “Break this body,” he said, “do it.”

Cas’ hand was against the back of his head and around his back. His smile was a knife against his cheek before he tightened his grip and started fucking him all over again.

 

**THEN**  
The bruises didn’t hurt as much as knowing Sam had put them there. Dean was swallowing another drink to the things that just weren’t _right_ anymore and rubbing his hand against his forehead like he could make anything make sense anymore. All he knew was that for a moment (or five) he thought he could save Sam, he could show him what he was becoming and—

“Dean,” Cas said. He was standing over there, behind Dean’s shoulder somewhere. Dean didn’t even have to look back at him to know that he was just staring at him like a raw-wound and the weight of the things Cas couldn’t say and Dean just couldn’t bring himself to think about or understand was more than he could stand.

He’d lost his brother to a demon-bitch who’s blood must have tasted like a hundred orgasms and now there was angel at his back waiting for him to save the fucking world. Dean didn’t give a damn about the fucking world when he couldn’t even save his baby-fucking-brother. The liquor made him slow and stupid and let the hell he kept trying to put (far) behind him right back under his skin like an annoying buzz. “Go away, Cas,” he said.

Cas was closer, close enough to feel the heat of his angelic body and the intense stare of his (too) blue eyes. His hands were hanging at his sides and his fingers fidgeted like he was still just so _scared_ or _unsure_ and Dean was twisting him up in knots Cas couldn’t figure out how to untangle. Dean thought that deserved a drink. Cas stared with concerned eyebrows, “I…” he started (I and not _we_ , just one angel of the Lord and not a whole heavenly host behind him). “Dean,” he said again.

“Cas— _don’t_.”

For a second (almost thirty of them), Dean thought Cas was going to turn and leave and maybe come back after he was hung over and not drunk. His feet shifted and then stilled and when he moved, he put a hand on the table between the bottle and the glass and another on the back of the chair. He was close enough to _smell_ (all detergent and shampoo) and too close to see in anything but spare details. His hair was across his forehead and his eyelashes were dark-dark but his eyes were blue and blurry. 

“Cas,” Dean said, shifting in his seat, moving _away_.

Cas was uncertain for a beat and then his hand left the table and touched Dean’s face, slipped down his neck and across his shoulder to the hand print burned into his arm. When Cas’ hand tightened across it, it was like _fire_ and Dean couldn’t _breathe_. “Dean,” Cas said and there was nothing uncertain or curious in the way his name sounded then. Cas pushed his mouth against Dean’s and it wasn’t exactly a kiss but an attempt at one—just a fumble like a first time—and for one second (or more) Dean just let his eyes close and let himself feel the strange innocence of the touch. Cas tilted his head with a grunt of frustration and Dean touched his cheek—felt it smooth and rough under his thumb—and pressed back into the kiss.

A dozen thoughts beat across his mind like (Sam was gone) and (the world is ending) and (this is an _angel_ ) and ( _he saved me_ ) and then stuttered to nothing when Cas’ mouth opened and his breath tasted just like Crest-fucking-toothpaste and his hesitant and unsure tongue was against Dean’s liquor-thick and nearly-numb one. 

Dean put his hand across Cas’ on his face and pulled away from the kiss. He was too close to something he couldn’t name and there was too much crushing him to think about what he was _doing_ or what he even fucking _wanted_ to be doing but he damn well knew he’d never kissed a _man_ before. (He wasn’t even sure Cas was a _man_ but he knew he was _wearing_ one.) “Did God command that?” he asked with his eyes closed.

“No,” Cas answered (sincerely, of course). He stayed close because he didn’t know that he should have moved away. “I,” he started and stopped and then shifted on his feet next to Dean without pulling away, “I wanted to.” He said it like it was a revelation.

 

**NOW**  
When Dean looked in the mirror he saw a Human face staring back at him. He’d found enough water and enough soap to scrub the body he was wearing and a razor to scrape its skin until he was clean and shaven and looked something how he remembered looking before. His hair was short because Cas had pushed him into a chair and cut it close to his scalp. When he looked at Dean it was like he was trying to find something and couldn’t quite see it the same as it had been. He’d left Dean there, in a chair surrounded by the debris of his cut-short hair. 

So when he looked in the mirror he saw a Human-face with all-black eyes like his all-black soul (or whatever it was that he was now). A hundred(thousand) years ago he thought that he would have hated the sight of himself, would have pushed a knife so far inside of this body that the thing (he was) inside of it screamed as it died and the poor son of a bitch that was made of flesh and blood died with it. Then again, a hundred(thousand) years ago, he hated the sight of his own skin in the mirror and the dark-bruised circles around his eyes, the faded freckles on his face, the rough skin of his knuckles, the ache of his muscles and the smell of grave dirt that clung to his clothes every damn day.

He smashed the mirror with a thought because he _could_ and he pulled on the clean clothes he found in the closet of an empty house. The air was freezing-fucking-cold everywhere he went but the body he was wearing didn’t shiver when it had a creature from hell inside of it. No (oh no) because that brisk cold was the pervasive slow creep of ice that smelled like brimstone and _fire_ and left the acid stain of sulfur like _evil_ everywhere it touched. 

Dean walked in the body because the motion of it lulled him into a waking dream—it calmed the itch under his skin as the soul he was choking to death cried and fought against him with useless little infant’s hands. He saw the turned-creatures that had been destroyed by the Croatoan virus and when they came close to him they smelled his blood and saw his black eyes and bared their teeth but didn’t attack. 

He toyed with them, beat them with the power coiled under his hands and thought about slaughtering them all just for the sake of the blood they’d spill across the streets. Just because he _could_ and the thought of that power drove him crazy in his gut until it became a desire to kill that was growing bigger-and-brighter with every fucking footstep.

 

**THEN**  
Angels were all douchebags. Dean decided that after Uriel tried to kill his brother (and wavered on that decision when Cas kissed him like a kindergartener but stuck by it after Cas ran away like a scared little boy). If all angels were douchebags (and they were) then Zachariah was a higher order of douchebag that deserved some kind of special fucking medal or a plaque on the wall. 

Zachariah was an ugly son of a bitch that sneered down at him like he was worthless. “Make yourself comfortable,” was all he’d said when he put Dean in the gilded room with the stacks of cheeseburgers and the iced down bottles of beer. The whole thing was pretentious as fuck and Dean was almost sure (but not entirely) that Zachariah had no fucking idea what he was doing here because there was an edge of gleeful fury in his tight-politician’s grin. Wherever he’d gone beyond the gilded wall paper and the ugly ass glass figurines, it felt like he’d been gone for hours (and _hours_ ). 

Dean busied himself with looking at the art work and the patterns on the wall paper and considered eating a cheeseburger because they were _there_ and he’d hate to be a rude guest. If he even was a guest—he’d been in a lot of prisons in his time and for all of the shiny, pretty bullshit in the room it was still nothing but a room he couldn’t escape from and it made him itchy.

Being here made him itchy.

Being here without Cas made him second-third guess himself but there was more important things to worry about (like Sam). The world was on the edge of an apocalypse and the only person that could stop it was him so it didn’t matter if he wasn’t exactly _comfortable_ in the fucking waiting room for angels because he was going to save the world (and _Sam_ even if the bastard didn’t want him to). 

He still didn’t trust Zachariah.

For that matter, the longer Dean looked at the painting of the angel with the sword until the itchy, fidgeting feeling became a full-fledged fear under his skin. He didn’t know a whole lot about angels (that was Sam’s belief, not his) so everything he knew was what he’d learned from Cas since he woke up in a coffin instead of in hell. Staring at the painting—long after he’d mocked everything from the flowing ribbon or whatever the hell it was and the whole thing where it looked like it could be a scene out of hardcore gay porn if not for the sword—he started to wonder what the hell he was doing here. 

(Sam.)

Angels weren’t sweet little cherubs with shiny gold halos that spent all their time helping mankind, they were killers. Mindless and obedient killers and whatever their plan was, they weren’t fucking sharing it with anyone but each other. Even Cas wouldn’t tell him what they wanted, only that Dean was _important_ and he was going to save the world. Only he was in a waiting room staring at a painting slowly convincing himself that he should be afraid of a blond guy in a skirt and wondering how the fuck he’d come to this.

“Hey,” he shouted at the walls, “hello!” 

Then: “Is anyone there?”

He smashed a glass angel on the floor, drank a beer and paced circles around the table looking for a fucking door or anything at all that looked like an exit. Every turn around the table he took, he thought about the long-dry-and-hot nights in hell he spent trying to forget what was waiting for him in the morning and slowly (so fucking slowly) talking himself down from panic as his body settled from a day of torture and tried to prepare itself for another. 

He thought of prison cells.

He thought of tiny cages.

He found himself standing in front of that painting again, staring at the sword. Dean wasn’t a righteous fucking man. He wasn’t a warrior for God. He was just a _man_ who had been killing since he was a _little boy_ and couldn’t even claim he was sorry about it anymore. He felt nothing at all but the act of death when he killed. He hadn’t felt it for years and now he was standing in an angel’s fucking waiting room being stupid enough to think that they were going to help something like him.

It was stupid (like _stupid_ ) when he’d known for years and years that he was nothing but an obedient soldier (daddy’s blunt little instrument). 

“This isn’t funny anymore!” he shouted at the walls. 

They weren’t going to save Sam and they weren’t going to help him save the world. 

“Dean,” Cas said behind him and caught him in two fists by the jacket, shoved him against the wall and put a hand across his mouth. His eyes were wide and too close, he was staring and not talking. (But all those things they’d said, like shouted at one another, about how Cas knew the angels were wrong. And that kiss that had been a fumble at something neither one of them could quite figure out. All that was in the stare.) Cas nodded and Dean nodded and Cas pulled back and yanked his sleeve up off his arm. He had the jagged knife in his hand and drew it across his arm without a hiss of pain. His blood smelled nothing like Human copper blood and it was thick and dark as he smeared it across the wall.

“What—” Dean said.

“Castiel!” Zachariah shouted.

Cas’s face was blank but the curl of his lips at the edge seemed like a smirk that was (out of place) a match for Dean’s if he hadn’t been fucking scared. Cas slapped his bloody palm against the wall and Zachariah disappeared in a stutter and flash with a furious scream following behind it. Cas caught Dean by the arm with his bloody hand and pulled him forward, “we have to go, he won’t be gone long.” Then they were out of the room before Dean could say _Sam_ because he had to _find_ him.

They came back together in Chuck’s dirty kitchen with the man himself standing there in boxers and a robe. He looked shocked as hell to see them standing there and nearly dropped the phone he was holding. “You’re not supposed to be here,” Chuck said.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean demanded. 

Chuck was staring at Cas, not at him, and pointing, “is he?”

It didn’t matter what Cas was or wasn’t (and how Dean had never really noticed how Cas had so artfully avoided ever meeting Chuck before now) because the walls were shaking and the glass in the window panes was rattling so hard it seemed like they should have been shattering. “Sam,” Dean remembered.

“They’re coming,” Cas said, he pulled the silver sword out and gripped it with white knuckles as he shifted closer to Dean like instinct and waited for Chuck to stop stammering how it wasn’t _supposed to be_ and _answer the fucking question_. Cas pushed two fingers against Dean’s forehead and said, “I’ll hold them off.”

Dean showed up in the hall as the doors slammed shut and the last thing he saw was that demon bitches’ sly little grin because he was _too fucking late_.

 

**NOW**  
They were hunters.

Then again, in the world as it was, everyone was a hunter or they were dead.

But these were hunters, the kind that had been born and raised long before the world came to an end back in Detroit, in an unimpressive room with ice crawling up the windows. Back in those days when Dean’s body looked a lot like the one he’d be born in instead of the one he was just _wearing_ for now. They were the hunters that had been hunting the Winchesters in that last year, full of spite and vengeance and _hate_ for the things that had let Lucifer out of the cage and started an apocalypse that killed hundreds (and thousands and _millions_ ) of people. They were men with wrath that were beyond exhaustion and living on fury alone.

Dean watched them for days, crouched at the edges of their make-shift camps as they moved from abandoned town to abandoned town and killed demons and Croatoan zombies. They found and burned their friends and lost loved ones. They scavenged the wreckage for SPAM and Vienna sausages in sealed-tight cans. They set up salt circles and used blackened sticks to draw their precious devil’s traps on the floor and ceiling. In the evening, when they thought they were safe, they took turns sleeping and standing watch.

For a few hours, as he followed after their endless march, he wondered what the hell he would be if he were still Human like them. (He thought of what he’d be if he still carried Sam in his chest, if he had been forced to live with guilt and grief and the nothing of the world.) 

They caught a demon in their precious little traps on the fourth day he followed them, they stood in a circle around her as she laughed at their attempts to frighten her. She was glorious with age and fearless with arrogance. Her body was worn out around the edges like a glove that had been kept on too long. Her eyes were pitch black and her words split them down the center so they furious and shaking. 

They took turns—all six of them—throwing holy water on her and chanting their trivial incantations. She stood in the center of their circle-jerk and laughed at them until she was sick from it. Their exorcism was barely banishment, barely even a setback when she only had to find the nearest exit and find herself another unwilling body. 

They were hunters, they knew it was worthless, but they were _hunters_ and they _had to_.

Dean walked up to their circle, let his feet stomp on the floor and the demon in the center of their circle looked at him with a bloody-slash of smile across her face. Her smile turned into a hiss like a slithering serpent and she tipped her head to one side.

“Oh,” she said like regret, “I wish I could see this.”

They turned (one-by-one) and looked at him. Maybe his face was familiar or maybe it wasn’t, maybe they took a second to see him for what he was because his eyes weren’t always pitch-black but sometimes just Human. The closest one turned fast, tossed the holy water at his face and it hit his skin with a chill that didn’t even tingle across his skin.

“Amateur,” he said. He swept his hand to the side and knocked them back (all of them) and watched how they screamed in shock and clutched for the weapons they hadn’t been holding tight enough. Their jars of water hit the ground and washed across the wood, making puddles under the demon’s feet and she hissed in pain and danced up on her toes. He stepped forward, bent down and picked up a knife that the tallest man had dropped. “In my day,” he said as he lifted it—turned the blade and watched the faint light from the windows catch on it— “We salted the windows and doors.” He found the youngest, the one that was defiant and scared shitless. “In my day,” he said as he got close enough to smell SPAM and ash and dirt on the kid’s skin, “we stood a chance at winning.” He ran the knife down the boy’s face, watched the skin split open. “This is my first time,” he said, “I want you to know that—you’re my first.”

“Fuck you,” it spat at him.

“I’ll be gentle,” Dean said, he licked his lips, “I’ll be _very_ gentle.”

**THEN**  
Cas said, “God.”

Dean didn’t believe it, didn’t _want_ to believe it; made a joke out of it (something about tortillas). If he couldn’t believe in angels he wasn’t about to believe in God. (Even if he did believe in him, he wasn’t about to believe he gave a damn.) 

Cas said, “I need your amulet.”

Dean put his hand across it like he was going to protect it because the only fucking times he’d ever gone without the amulet were times it was taken from him (like when he was in hell) and he’d never-ever had to give it to anyone. It was his-and-Sam’s and had been since Sam gave it to him back in a hotel room while their father was off killing things instead of spending Christmas with them. 

Cas said nothing but stared at him and waited for permission, for the amulet, and didn’t say he understood what he was asking because maybe he didn’t. (But he understood Dean had to save Sam, he understood that because he’d protected Sam and killed for Sam and helped Dean _save_ Sam.) He kept his silence but not his distance and didn’t hold out his hand but was still waiting all the same.

Dean pressed his fingers against the amulet and thought (God wasn’t going to save them) and (Sam would be—) but (he _deserves_ it, he should know what it feels like to be betrayed) and then (it’s not that, it’s just…necessary). So he gave it to Cas and Cas thanked him and promised him it would be safe.

Sam said nothing at first; just shook his head and curled his hands into loose fists.

Dean ignored him then, tried to keep his mind on the things they still had to do. There was a whole world that was fucked now and they had to stop it because they started it and Sam was getting his panties in a twist over a necklace. Then he was wrapped up in war and there was no time to worry about Sam’s precious feelings because he was worrying about Sam and demon blood. (And all the people, all the fucking people that were going to die. But mostly, Sam.)

When it was over, Sam said: “I can’t trust myself,” while he stared at Dean’s chest where the amulet wasn’t.

Dean hated him (just for a second, just for a breath) and said, “I can’t concentrate when I have to worry about you—and I can’t trust you.” For the first time since their mother died he wanted Sam _gone_ and couldn’t even figure out why the fuck he would want that. He watched his brother nod his head and it hurt and it made him furious and he wanted to hit Sam and shout at him and tell him it was all his fucking fault for fucking some demon bitch to start with and if he’d just _listened_ to Dean, if he’d just _looked around_ once he would have _seen_ he was being used but he hadn’t and it was too fucking late.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He took his bag and he took his guilt and he took his slumped shoulders and he left.

When Cas came back he said, “where is Sam?”

Dean looked up from the gun he was cleaning, said, “not here.”

Then Cas sat at his side and said nothing.

 

_NOW_  
Cas found him. (He always found him.) Cas found him in a room with three more hunters tied to chairs, sweating tears and perspiration down their temples and cheeks. Their lips were cracked open and their teeth were gnawing on the dirty rags and scarves he’d tied as gags to keep them _quiet_. Their fingers were white-and-purple from the too tight dig of the leather straps holding them down and they were groaning and screaming in disgust behind his back.

Dean was shirtless, wiping his knife on the worn-out cotton of the T-shirt he had been wearing. His ribs were still purple from days and days ago, this body was too skinny—all bones—and no muscle. So he looked unthreatening and he’d slid right into their group four days ago and killed a demon with a sly wink at the poor little bitch he sent back to hell. They’d thrown their holy water on him and he had stood there with it dripping off his face and nodding when they explained _you could never be too sure_.

“Have a seat,” Dean said to Cas, motioned to the chair at the head of the room, “I was just about to start.”

He’d soaked them with water last night when it was cold-like-freezing outside and the chill that worked its way from outward from Detroit was crawling up the glass windows like spindle-thin fingers. They’d spent the night shivering in their clothes and he’d sat in the chair and watched them struggling until they were exhausted and chilled and waited until there was a fever-rash to their pink skin before he started a fire in the old fireplace across the room. The room was hot-like-hell now, the fire was eating through their coats and jackets. He had a few knives laying by the blaze getting nice-and-warm for later and a poker laying in the glowing embers until it was searing white-hot.

Cas looked at the three of them with a faint smirk at the edges of his lips. He stepped up close against Dean’s back, his coat and shirt and tie brushing against the length of Dean’s bare back, his hands smoothing down his fucking-thin arms to his wrists, fingers spread across the back of his hands. “Tell them our story,” he said against Dean’s ear, “tell them how I found you.”

Dean closed his eyes, let the shiver work down his back and tipped his head back, to the side, so he could taste Cas’ skin just beyond his lips. He smelled like soap and detergent (and angel and _hell_ ) and Dean kept his eyes closed when he said, “do you want to hear them scream?”

Cas’ hand slid down his belly, fingers slipping over the front of his jeans to curl there, pressing just tight enough to be a promise and not a tease. “You decide. I want to watch.”

When he turned around they were all red and sweating, shifting on their seats and biting for their freedom. He tossed his shirt to the side and looked at them one from the other, trying to figure out where he wanted to start. The one in the middle was the strong one, the defiant one that glared at him like he was filth (and worthless) and the other two were only following his lead. “When I was four,” he said, “a demon killed my mother and my father went _crazy_.” He stepped up to the middle chair, spread his knees and thighs and dropped himself down to sit in the man’s lap, caught the back of the chair behind him as he held the knife up against his cheek—right by the eye— “He made me what you are, he taught me everything about _everything_ and I loved killing those evil sons of bitches the way little boys love riding bikes.” He tipped his head, leaned forward, shivered at how the man under him jerked and flinched and cursed behind the gag. “The way I’m going to love killing you…nice. And. Slow.”

 

**THEN**  
Cas kissed him again while Sam was still gone. They were going to die the next morning anyway, whenever they trapped Raphael and demanded answers from him. Cas was a virgin and hookers hated him so Dean figured (after all) it wasn’t too much to ask to get laid on your last night on Earth. So he let Cas kiss him and he kissed him back and they ended up on floor with splinters digging into the back of his shirt and Cas on his hands and knees over him kissing him more-and-more and trying to figure out what came next. It was Dean that caught his hips and pulled him down, showed him how to grind against him through his pants and thought if he weren’t such a coward he’d show him a hand-job or a blow-job or maybe fuck him but he was _terrified_ and it made his heart beat until it was breaking his chest into bits of bone. So they came in their pants, hanging onto each other’s coats and gasping for breath.

They lived through the night and through Raphael who spit furious threats at Castiel about how he would kill him _again_ and _forever_ if he ever saw him again. Dean watched Castiel hang his head and act like it didn’t bother him (and thought, he knew what that felt like, he did) until he couldn’t take it and he pulled Cas up against him and kissed him again. It wasn’t desperation the second time because they were still alive. It felt like _hurt_ when Cas rested his hands on him and Dean pulled him so close he could feel the buttons on the white shirt digging in through his T-shirt. He wasn’t any braver but he was reckless when he pushed a hand down inside of Cas’ pants and curled it around his dick and got him off like that.

Cas saved him from a future that scared the shit out of him and Dean damn near cried to see him standing there at the side of the road and looking at him like he was the fucking morning sun. He said _don’t ever change_ to Cas before he pulled him close by the coat and kissed him and it _was_ desperate because he _needed_ it. He needed to feel it against his skin and under his skin and in his _bones_ that there was someone in the whole fucking world that wasn’t going to betray him how Sam had (or would) and how he had betrayed himself. He stumbled them across the gravel at the side of the road and Cas took them back to the motel room where the bed was soft and Dean stripped them down to their skin and rutted against Cas until they were both breathless and covered in sticky come and neither one of them understood what was happening.

Ellen and Jo were dead and Lucifer was alive and Death was walking the Earth and the whole world was fucked and Sam was _somewhere else_ and there wasn’t enough fucking whiskey in the fucking world to make it fucking alright. Dean couldn’t—he just _couldn’t_ and when Cas tried to touch him, tried to say “Dean,” he hit him as hard as he could and it hurt him instead of Cas.

Cas tipped his head and looked like he was so fucking sorry about _everything_. He said, “Dean.”

“Shut up,” Dean said, “just shut the fuck up.” He couldn’t _take it_ and he couldn’t drink it away and he’d failed and Ellen was dead and Jo was dead and there was _nothing_. He wanted to—he just—

Cas paused there, in front of him, and then pulled at the trench coat, dropped it behind him. Then the black jacket and his tie and Dean shook his head. It just _hurt_. Cas was unbutton his shirt and looking right at him. Dean was holding a cup with brown whiskey that wasn’t doing a damn thing to dull the ache and he kept telling himself he had to _keep moving_ but he couldn’t. Cas was shirtless and reaching his hands down to pull at his own belt, slipping it out through the belt loops with a slithering. 

“Cas,” Dean said at last and didn’t even recognize his own voice.

Cas pushed his pants down, pulled his shoes off. He was naked down to the undershorts clinging to his slim hips and he stepped forward to put his hands against Dean’s chest and he was just so damn warm and smelled like shampoo the same as he _always did_. His hands were gentle because Dean was hurt-and-bruised and just _aching_ but they didn’t stop until Dean was naked down to his own shorts and the glass he’d been clutching was set aside. “Dean,” Cas said. 

“I can’t,” Dean said, “I _can’t_.”

Cas kissed him, kissed his jaw and his neck and his lips as light as a breath and stepped close, up against his chest, kept his arms in close to his own body but let his hands rest against Dean so it was just instinct to wrap him up in his arms and hold onto him. Cas kissed him again and again and again everywhere he could reach skin. He kissed his collarbone and his throat and slipped his arms around Dean to pull him closer. 

Dean thought (I just want to cry, I just want to—) they must have looked ridiculous like that and later when they were in bed, under blankets and still wearing nothing, they must have looked just as stupid but the sound of Cas’ breath and the warmth of his skin put him to sleep when the stabbing thoughts and the weight of failure tried to drown him.

It was later, after they ran through heaven until they found Joshua in a garden and he told him that God didn’t give a damn, after the whore of Babylon and Cas’ hangover, after the alleyway and Cas’ blunt and impossible fury of fists and betrayal. “Cas,” Dean said, “I _have_ to. I can’t let the world end—I can’t let—“

Cas pushed him back on the thin cot in the panic room, two hands against his shoulders and knees on either side of his hips all but slipping off the edges. “Do you know what they will do to you, Dean? Do you know what it feels like to be taken over by an angel—an archangel? Do you truly believe they will concede to your demands? Do you believe they will keep their word if they give it?”

“You—”

“They are not me,” Cas said.

“Cas,” Dean said again and shoved at him. He didn’t even make him sway, didn’t make him move at all. Cas stared down at him and his eyes were hard and strange when they’d never been so empty or angry before. “I can’t let everyone die.”

“They will all die,” Cas said, “my brothers will destroy this world with their battle. Do you believe that if you say yes to Michael your brother will have the will to say no to Lucifer? Do you believe he will stand and watch you—”

“Shut up,” Dean snarled, “shut up about Sam.”

Cas leaned back and just looked at him.

“Fuck you,” Dean said, “get off me.”

Cas moved to leave and Dean kneed him in the thigh, threw his balance off and watched him land against the ground. He was angry-as-hell and hopeless and the last fucking thing in the world he needed was—he followed after Cas, knocking his knees against the hard ground and punching Cas even when it wouldn’t hurt him (even when he knew _that_ ) and pulled at his collar and his tie with his teeth bared. “Don’t you say that,” Dean snarled at him, “don’t you—not _you_.”

Cas kissed him and it was as violent as Dean’s words. He pulled at him, pulled him down and kissed him so their mouths were bleeding together. Dean pushed down against him, pulled at his clothes and rutted against his thigh and kissed-him and hated-him and (loved-him) and when they were naked, Cas was pulling at his shoulders asking for more-and-more. “I want this,” he said into Dean’s mouth. 

There was nothing within an arm’s grab but spit and he was angry-enough that he sucked on his fingers before he pushed them into Cas’ body and watched how he jerked at that and then sighed and relaxed around him. His hands were leaving new bruises over old bruises and Cas sucked at the split on his cheekbone just for a taste of his blood as he spread his knees and thighs and let Dean fuck him with just spit to make it slick. Cas’ moans were edged with hisses of pain and tight with more-more-more and he pulled Dean down and buried his face against his neck when he came.

The next time (the last time), they were in the Impala and Dean was naked, on his back with his legs pulled up and spread open. Cas was almost-all-Human and drowning like every-other-man. Dean was heavy with promises he’d-made he couldn’t follow through with. Cas was slower-and-nicer than Dean, working him open with lube and not spit, giving him time to feel the strange pain of being fucked for the first time, time to try to figure out how the hell he’d gotten here, on his back in his own car with an angel balls-deep in his body.

Cas panted against his skin like he just couldn’t take it but his hands were light and easy on his skin, just petting and not pushing for more. Dean nodded his head and pulled at his back and thought (I love you) and didn’t even know how to say it.

He pulled and said “more, come on Cas, come on fuck me.”

He thought he heard Cas groan _beautiful_ against his face but he wasn’t sure and then it didn’t matter.

 

**NOW**  
“Which one?” Dean asked. They were watching another nomad band of men-and-women and babies passing through the ruined town they’d fucked their way through. His body was breaking apart under the abuse Cas put it through, all bruises and broken bones that were slow to heal and neither of them wanted to bother to fix it when he could find another. 

Cas watched them walking, smiled at the men in the front and back of the crowd that were guarding the young children. “That one,” he said, “he looks like you.” He had blond-brown hair and hazel-eyes and his shoulders were thrown back and he looked around the ruined buildings like he was waiting and ready for anything to come attack. His hands were dirty but the ring he wore on his third finger still gleamed in the sunlight. There was a woman and a child somewhere in the middle of their group that belonged to him and the thought of it must have twisted Cas up inside until he couldn’t hold back the sneer on his face as he looked sideways at Dean. “We could kill them.”

“If we kill them all, I’ll run out of bodies,” Dean said. He stepped back and then ran forward and threw himself out of the window they were standing in front of. The sudden sound of the breaking glass must have scared the fuck out of the crowd because they were all screaming. When he hit the ground the bones that weren’t already broken were cracked and the ones that were ripped through muscles and skin. 

It took a matter of minutes, the men scattered and the women pulled their children against their chests, they ran for cover before a group of two broke off to come investigate his body. They were walking one foot over the other as cautious as they could, staring up and around to see where he’d come from and waiting for him to jump up and kill them like all the other Croatoan zombies. Mr. Hazel eyes was there, crouching closer and peering down at him. Up close he looked nothing like Dean at all, just a passing similarities in colors but Dean took him anyway—pulled away from the dying body and shoved his way into the young-and-living one. 

He didn’t even bother to kill the man that had come with the one he took, just walked away from him to where Cas was waiting at the end of the street. “I’m taller now,” Dean said when he reached him.

“There are angels coming,” Cas said. He pulled the silver sword from his coat. 

“Does Lucifer want them?”

Cas looked past him down the street where the wind started to pick up and the bitter cold broke with a snap of thunder as the heat rolled in all at once. “Just their wings,” he said.

 

**THEN**  
“I can’t,” Dean said. “He’s—he’s my brother.” He’d had this conversation before, with Bobby, with Sam, with Cas before they’d had sex (like yesterday) but now they were in Detroit and the four rings were heavy as hell in his pocket because he’d seen the world as it became and he loved Sam and he (almost) trusted him but he’d _seen_ the world. “We’ll find another way.”

Cas was listening to him, sitting on the hood of the Impala while Dean paced from side to side and Bobby and Sam found a demon (or two) to bleed dry. His hands were in his lap and his heels were on the bumper while he listened and when Dean finally came to a pause Cas just said, “Sam is the only one that can do this, Dean. If you don’t believe in him—he’ll fail.”

“So I should just—have _faith_ in him? Think he can defeat the devil? He couldn’t even say no to _Ruby_.” The words were hateful and petty and _awful_ and Dean was a coward and they all knew it. The world was falling apart around them and this was their only chance to end this without destroying what was left. 

“Yes,” Cas said, “have faith in Sam. If you cannot have faith in Sam, have faith that the love he has for you is stronger than the hate the devil has for all mankind. Whatever mistakes he has made, he made them in good faith—he made them for _you_.”

Dean hung his head and Cas stayed where he was, let Dean shuffle across to stand next to his leg before he reached out a hand to touch his hand. “I can’t lose my brother like this,” Dean said. He drew in a sigh and looked right at Cas and said, “do you think he can do this?”

“Yes,” Cas said.

 

**NOW**  
The silver swords were standing where they’d been driven through the angels that carried them, the four pitiful bastards were laying in pieces across the ground with their wings burnt black into the buildings and road. Cas was bleeding from a gash that ran down his shoulder and chest and Dean had pinned on his back while he licked the blood as it welled up from the pink-raw skin. He dug his tongue down into the parted flesh and Cas arched his back and pulled at his hair and neck to press him closer, whispering dirty-fucking curses in Enochian because he knew it drove Dean crazy and they were out in the open fucking with their clothes on. 

Dean was holding Cas’ sword in his fist, pressing it down against the old black-top road under his knuckles while he sucked at Cas’ skin and his angel-blood that was sweet as ambrosia against his tongue and moved through his body until it felt like he was _on fire_ like a _god_. He ripped his shirt open, spread it across his chest, sat back on his knees across Cas’ hips and licked his stained lips just to hear the way Cas groaned.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Dean said, “I’m going to fuck you right here.” He drew the blade across Cas collarbone, opened a shallow slit that welled up blood that glistened in the dying light of the afternoon. The chill was creeping back in now that the storm was gone and the angels were lying dead all around them. He leaned forward and ran his tongue across the blood, kept one hand on Cas’ side as he arched again and loved the heat of his body and his blood and his _want_. “Show me your wings,” he said, “show them to me.”

Cas arched his back again, his eyes closed and the lashes fluttered and Jimmy’s body snapped and the bones cracked and then Cas spread his wings wide across the road and all the feathers were snowy-white and downy-soft. Dean leaned forward with his knuckles against the ground and shoved his hand into the feathers, ruffled them up and pulled at the quills and Cas jerked under him with a hiss and a too-tight grip of hands that laid bruises down into his skin. “Dean,” he groaned.

Dean pushed his teeth against Cas’ mouth, bit, “I’m going to fuck you,” against his lips and Cas just nodded, all breath and groans and bleeding down his chest and into his feathers. Dean slid back, put his knees between Cas’ legs and tore his pants open, used the sword to cut them away. Cas’ thighs were spread around him and tan and warm and his eyes were fucking blue as the _sky_ but his blood was dark-red. “Ask me,” he said as he pushed his pants down off his hips.

“Fuck me,” Cas said and grabbed Dean by the head to push him back down over the bleeding gash on his chest. He dropped the sword to the side of their bodies, shoved Cas’ legs up and pushed into his body and sucked on the gash. Cas _writhed_ and _cursed_ and Dean fucked him on his back with his wings scraping across the road.

 

**THEN**  
Everything (absolutely _everything_ ) ended in Detroit. Just like it was always-always meant to, just like he thought (or maybe knew) it would. Everything ended with Sam saying _yes_ and Lucifer’s soft and understanding smile. Cas was fidgeting at Dean’s side and Sam was just _gone_ so the only thing that was left standing where he’d been was the devil himself wearing his brother like a suit.

“Oh,” Lucifer said, “that does feel nice.”

Cas moved all at once, both arms around Dean and pulled him back against his chest, one of his hands grabbing his chin and forcing his head back. The other was around his side and pulling him back so his ass was pressed against Cas’ hips and he was _hard_. 

“What the hell?” Dean demanded, “Cas!”

“You nearly ruined it,” Cas said against his cheek, rubbing their faces together, whispering softly like a lover, “you nearly ruined _everything_. We waited so long for you, for him,” and he nodded at Lucifer (wearing Sam), “and I almost gave it all up for you, just to _have_ you—does that make you feel better? You almost stopped the apocalypse, Dean. If only you’d held out a little longer. I was so _tired_ of playing the nice-confused-angel for you. I would have _fucked_ you across that stupid car if you hadn’t given in.”

Lucifer smiled at them, twisting Sam’s face up in a friendly grin. “I’m not sure that’ll make him feel better—it doesn’t make Sammy feel better.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean demanded.

“I was so worried Anna was going to tell you,” Cas said with his tongue across Dean’s skin, “she was the one hunting me in the beginning—you’ll understand why I had to make sure she died before she remembered. I couldn’t have her telling you that I fell years ago. That I was in hell with you—you were so beautiful there, Dean.” 

No.

“I was hoping it would be you,” Cas said. He dropped his hand down sliding it across the zipper of Dean’s jeans and tightening his fingers.

“Get the fuck off me,” he snapped.

“The best part,” Cas said against his ear (all teeth and damp lips), “is that you _really_ loved me.” Then quieter, so low it was almost just a groan as Cas ground against him as Dean twisted and fought to get free and got nothing but bruises. “I think I love you too.” His fingers tightened and his teeth dug into Dean’s ear and Lucifer was chuckling.

“What kind of demon do you think a Winchester will make?” Lucifer asked.

“No!” Dean shouted.

“Yes,” Cas hissed against his ear. He tightened his arms around Dean and there was a flutter of noise that sounded (maybe) a hell of a lot like wings and all he could feel was the tearing-claws of pain that raked down his body as he was pulled _down_ and he screamed into it but the sound was swallowed by the sudden _heat_ and stench of _hell_ as it closed in all around him. “Welcome home,” Cas whispered, “we have forever.”

**Now**  
Dean was covered in sweat and blood and Cas was heaving for breath under him, debauched and exhausted and _satisfied_. His chest was pale and the cuts Dean had made across his skin while he fucked him were pink but not bleeding red anymore. The skin around his eyes was all dark and his pupils looked too damn big for his eyes, like he was still high on pain and endorphins. His fingers were loose, gripping at Dean’s legs still bent under his hips. Dean was holding the sword in one hand and his whole body was burning with the tingle of angel-blood that was pumping through his veins now. He could hear _everything_ and he leaned forward again, his fist scraping knuckles against the asphalt and his fingers tangling up in Cas’ bloody feathers. 

He was close enough to taste his breath as it fought out through his bloodless lips and Cas’ eyes closed when he pressed his body down against his again. “You look so good like this,” he said. He threaded his fingers through the feathers, pushing them until they broke and Cas hissed and shifted because the pain was too close and too much now. “I always thought you’d look good like this, I used to think about it,” he kissed Cas’ cheek and his neck, “I used to dream about it in hell.”

Cas’ hands were light as a kitten’s on his neck, his voice was only a low moan as he turned his face toward Dean’s voice. He was so easy to move like this, so pliant and willing and _weak_. His lips were bitten and his skin was cool and all of his blood was pumping through Dean now and making his whole fucking body feel like it was going to catch on fire. 

Dean shifted his weight so his hand was pressed against the wing and he could lift the sword. He ran his tongue across his lips and Cas shifted under him again, whispered something that sounded like his name and tried to move his wings away from the grating pressure pushing them against the road. “I _loved_ my brother,” he said. Then he sat back and wrapped both hands around the sword and brought it down straight through Cas’ chest, through his heart and saw his eyes open wide and his mouth—pale and bloodless—opened like he was going to scream. For a second he was still and Dean leaned all his weight against the sword and stared down at Cas. “You son of a bitch, I _never_ loved you.”

Because here, when he had nothing at all left, what did it matter if he lied?


End file.
